From water boy to executive, as his father did before him

There wasn’t room for Bill Bidwill at
the table when he started attending NFL owners meetings with his father,
Charles, who bought the Chicago Cardinals in 1932. Space was limited, and he
was young.

Michael Bidwill (left), a former prosecutor, joined Bill and the Arizona Cardinals.

He and his brother, Stormy, would take seats along a wall,
where they could stay out of the way.

“I remember Dan Rooney would be sitting on the one wall, and
my brother and I would be on the other, just listening,” said Bidwill, 75, who
followed his father into the football business, carrying a vice president’s
title while an undergraduate at Georgetown and taking over as owner of the
Cardinals in 1972.

“We wouldn’t be at the table,” Bidwill said. “None of us
spoke. But I was in the room and listened to the various discussions. That was
very worthwhile.”

Bidwill’s first recollections of the NFL go back to the 1940s,
when he served as a Cardinals water boy in Chicago. His son, Michael, did the
same during his childhood in St. Louis in the 1970s. As his father did before
him, Michael has ascended to top management with the Cardinals, although via a
different path.

“I knew at some point I’d like to be involved in the team, if
I could have a role that would be productive,” Michael Bidwill said. “But I
decided I wanted to go do my own thing first.”

Michael Bidwill got a law degree and spent seven years as a
federal prosecutor, specializing in violent crimes. When he joined the
Cardinals in 1996 as vice president and general counsel, he put his political
experience to work, focusing on the push for public funding for a $450 million
stadium that will open this season near Phoenix.

Like most owners, the Bidwills took a beating in print and
over the airwaves during that debate.

“The kids have been raised in it,” Bill Bidwill said. “We
always take some flak for whatever reason. They’ve seen that as they were
growing up. But I never got upset about it. And the kids never saw me get upset
about it, because it’s part of the business. If you get wiped out on a Sunday,
you’re not going to like the newspapers on Monday.”

Michael Bidwill points to several high points that have
balanced out those miserable Mondays. There was the securing of the new
stadium, which will host the Super Bowl in 2008. And there have been victorious
Sundays — among them, a win in the last regular-season game of 1998 against the
San Diego Chargers that ended a 15-year playoff drought.

“We were down on the field, and I got about the biggest bear
hug I’ve ever received from anybody,” Michael Bidwill said. “It was from my
Dad.”